<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">ROMNEY: I'm in this race because I care about Americans. <span style='font-size: 14pt'>I'm not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.</span> I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine. I'm just concerned about the very heart of America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans right now who are struggling, and I'll continue to take that message across the nation. </div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Nearly 150 truck drivers effectively shut down shipping out of the Port of Seattle when they went to the state capitol in Olympia instead of the port, to protest dangerous work conditions in the trucking industry. Drivers were so concerned about the way the industry treats them that they risked their careers to make their voices heard.

This week the truck drivers – who toil under the guise of false self-employment – are making it their job to sound the alarm on occupational hazards, overweight containers, shoddy equipment, risks to motorists, and the culprits responsible for these rampant safety violations: their employers and their giant retail shipper clients like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target.

The trucking bosses at Pacer, Seattle Freight, Western Ports and others were stunned, but the state troopers weren’t. Washington’s top cops testified before lawmakers right alongside the workers, detailing a dizzying array of dangers associated with the drayage industry: Chronic safety violations so serious that an investigative journalist discovered late last year that officers pulled 32% of rigs they inspected outside the terminals off the road — double the rate for trucks throughout the state. When specially trained troopers conducted more thorough inspections in 2011, King 5 TV reported, 58% of Port of Seattle cargo vehicles were yanked. And according to Captain Jason Berry’s testimony, an astonishing 80% have been put out of service during certain recent time periods. </div></div>

working poor (http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/seattle-truck-drivers-shut-down-p)

Q

eg8r

02-03-2012, 09:53 AM

So, when you go to the doctor with a heart attack do you want him working on the toenail fungus or not? Sure he used an extreme example but both Boortz and Romney are correct. There is no reason right now to be focused on such a small group of people (the truly poor) when trying to fix the major faults of the economy. You spend the majority of the effort on the issues that are really driving the problem.

Maybe you would like a different analogy...You walk into the hospital coughing blood (economy is collapsing). Would you like the doctor to get you a throat lozenge for your cough (the small group of citizens who are truly poor with safety nets already in place to help them) or would you like to address the hemorrhage (the 90-95% Romney is referring to who have no safety nets and are quickly becoming part of the truly poor).

eg8r

eg8r

02-03-2012, 10:00 AM

Good for the truck drivers. If you are being told to do something that you know is illegal then you should have the common sense to walk away from it.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">who toil under the guise of false self-employment –</div></div>Care to explain this in your own words?

eg8r

eg8r

02-03-2012, 10:13 AM

Here is Romney's rebuttal...

Romney misspoke (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/politics/2012/02/03/bts-romney-misspoke-poor.ksnv) Basically your attempt at class warfare has been shut closed for the time being.

Like I am saying, he is NOT saying he "isn't concerned about the poor" but rather saying for the time being they are being helped and that he will be focusing on the middle class.

eg8r

nAz

02-03-2012, 11:21 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: eg8r</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Like I am saying, he is NOT saying he "isn't concerned about the poor" but rather saying for the time being they are being helped and that he will be focusing on the middle class.

eg8r </div></div>

I agree with some of this the very poor do have "some" safety nets in place. I just don't think Mitt truly gives a sh!t about the middle class... i think he will say what ever it takes to get elected.

eg8r

02-03-2012, 12:13 PM

You could be correct. I know very little about the guy.

Now the question is, do you honestly think any of the politicians care about the middle class or the poor for that matter?

If you answer yes to that can you give some comparitive reasons?

eg8r

cushioncrawler

02-03-2012, 02:50 PM

Its the shock doctrine.
The GOP gets windfall out of any dizaster.
Now they kan put the environment social issues GW etc last.
Oh, yes, defence iz allways first.
And the war on drugs second.
mac.
America the grate will go down in ate.

I get the analogy but he just equated the poor with toenail fungus!
Who are the truly poor anyway? How do you measure that? Who falls into that group? Is it the 43 million on food stamps?

Q

Qtec

02-04-2012, 02:01 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Good for the truck drivers. If you are being told to do something that you know is illegal then you should have the common sense to walk away from it. </div></div>

Did you watch the video? The truck drivers say they have no choice. Haul it or get fired, that's the choice.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Care to explain this in your own words?

eg8r </div></div>

Its all there in the link if you had read it.

Quite simply, its a scam. Its a way for employers to avoid any responsibility for the people who work for them.

It goes like this, Port Authority , instead of employing workers directly, hands contract to Contractor A and says, get me workers. Con A goes to Con B and says, get me workers. Con B goes to employment agency and they provide workers for the Port.
Worker has an accident inside the Port and a $55,000 medical bill is the result. Who pays?
PA says he doesn't work for us, talk to Con A. Con A says, talk to Con B, Con B says etc...blah blah...., employment agency says, its nothing to do with us, he's self-employed!

Its happening all over and has been for some time.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Walmart may have been the end beneficiary of Dickerson's sweat, but the big-box retailer wasn't directly responsible for her low pay or her aching body. That's one of the many benefits to an employment arrangement based on outsourcing and subcontracting: The corporation at the top indemnifies itself from any unpleasantness at the bottom, thanks to the smaller corporate players in the middle. Many American companies have woken up to this fact, with broad implications for the future of blue-collar work.

"It seems to be spreading like wildfire," Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of American labor history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says of such outsourcing, particularly as it relates to temp workers like Dickerson. "All of these companies, wherever they possibly can, they want to create a workforce that doesn't work for them. The question is, Why? What is the incentive?"

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">A growing industry of temp agencies supplies -- and exploits -- workers that move the products sold by big box stores like Walmart. In sprawling warehouse areas in places like California and Illinois, a new wave of so-called 'logistics' companies hire temp workers to run warehouse distribution facilities that get products from manufacturers -- mostly overseas -- to stores like Walmart.
The logistics companies hire large workforces on a daily basis, paying them low wages, giving them no benefits and putting them in grueling working conditions that lead many of the best workers to suffer from debilitating injuries that end their careers. The jobs are frequently given to African Americans and immigrants from Latin America. Companies like Walmart hire logistics companies who then subcontract out to smaller companies who directly employ the warehouse workers, adding layers of bureaucracy that prevent the big box companies from suffering any negative blowback if the workers exploited or treated illegally. </div></div>

Q

Qtec

02-04-2012, 02:05 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style='font-size: 14pt'>Many of the logistics companies, it seems, want a high turnover rate in order to keep wages down:</span>

But about six months in, he says he started to understand how everything worked by design. He was shocked by the warehouse's turnover rate, as new workers constantly came and went, often leaving under bad terms. He guesses the average worker lasted three months, many of them eventually being "pointed out." As in many of Joliet's warehouses, he and his colleagues were working under a demerit system, receiving points for being tardy, missing shifts or not "making rate." Once you hit 10 points, you're gone, he says.

He now argues that workers don't last in part because they're not supposed to. New workers, after all, are cheaper workers. And he also says the little-known temp agencies are there largely to facilitate the churn.

As with many other aspects of corporate greed seen in recent years, there is no reason for the companies to pay workers as poorly as they do:

"Despite the fact that these workers are paid poverty-level wages, we estimate that about a trillion dollars comes through Chicago on an annual basis," says Meinster. "That's about $6 million per warehouse worker. Each worker is responsible for moving $6 million worth of goods through that supply chain. These are the workers who, collectively, if they don't show up for a day, these companies would stand to lose a lot of money.

Workers responsible for millions of dollars of goods moving through the supply chain are given sub-living wages to do backbreaking work under terrible conditions. </div></div>

Romney misspoke (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/politics/2012/02/03/bts-romney-misspoke-poor.ksnv) Basically your attempt at class warfare has been shut closed for the time being.

eg8r </div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">On Thursday and Friday, Romney told a pair of interviewers that he had misspoken and mangled the point he was trying to make. O'Brien herself seemed skeptical about this line of defense, and Maddow was downright incredulous.

"Misspeaking is a real thing," she said, before playing a series of verbal gaffes by everyone from news anchors to John McCain. Romney's statement, she said, was not so much a misplaced set of words as it was a real statement of beliefs that people took issue with.

"You can tell what's a legitimate mistake and what is a slip of the tongue," she said. Maddow also wondered what Romney meant to say, if he had simply fumbled his words.